


this is what faith looks like (and it is a good look on you)

by maikuria



Category: Inn Between (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, Found Family, Gen, I wrote it at 2 am all of my brainless are for this podcast, the parentheses make a comeback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21637837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maikuria/pseuds/maikuria
Summary: After everything, Sterling is offered his place back with the Order.He has a choice to make.It all starts at a party.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	this is what faith looks like (and it is a good look on you)

We’re at a party.

That’s how this begins, or maybe how it ends, we are at a party and our heroes are there, victorious. It’s this: a wizard who is not a master, a cleric who is not holy, a chief without a clan, a bard who has no name and a paladin who has no honor.

Except that is not who they are, who they became. Here is the woman who picked her pieces back up and found a family again, who never lost her faith. Here is the girl who ran away into adventure and died and still faced adventure again. Here is the wizard who  _ stayed _ and ran towards his fear. Here is the person who spent an entire life atoning, who acted out of love even when they knew they would regret.

And here’s the lord who was too afraid to go home, who went back to save a friend, who had faith on his friends before he had faith on his god. Here is Lord Sterling Whitetower, who has lived a lie all of his life and only does it because of love. Here is your lord, who started forgetting that lie because of another love he found.

Here are our heroes: triumphant and raggedy and beautiful, flawed.

They have set order in the kingdom by doing the impossible, have saved their princess, have saved each other. Here are the people who killed the Bone King and braved the Woods of Woe. This party is not in their name but they are honored guests, and some of them are seeing luxury for the first time but  _ all _ of them are experiencing what it means to know peace alongside those who you love.

And here’s the choice:

Lord Sterling Whitetower was disgraced when he was accused of fathering a child. 

He took that disgrace in stride, did not reveal its most inherent flaw, because he was keeping a secret not entirely his own. Here is a man who is willing to live a lie out of love.

And here are the people who can revert that disgrace.

Perhaps they talk to him, or maybe they don’t. Maybe all they have is a stiff greeting. Maybe Sterling’s own friends distract him from their presence, jest and tease and taunt.

Then it comes. The news. These adventurers have saved the Kingdom.

The order may be blind but it is not full of idiots. This paladin has saved the Kingdom more than once, it makes sense  _ (it would be useful) _ to take him back, to offer him a place where he belongs. After all, he is a lord and one of them, sworn to protect the Princess with his life, with his honor. He is not a mere adventurer, a common thug, a brass  _ (crass)  _ soldier.

So let’s say they make a decision. 

When his friends have separated from him enough, when he sends the paladins one lingering glance, they approach

_ “Here, _ ” they say, and he is wide eyed at their offer, the thing in his eyes is fragile hope instead of yearning and fear. “Here is your chance to reverse your disgrace.”

The whole room forgets how to breathe.

_ (Not the whole room, but the people who matter. For Sterling, these people are the whole room.) _

Lady Daria is watching, of course she is. This is the son she has failed in many ways. This is the order that ousted him, abandoned him, lied about him.

_ (How powerless must she have felt? She knew the truth, could not tell it or she would fall. She could not console him, either, for he ran.) _

There are his friends, worthiest of him and worthiest of her respect. She has seen the way they look at him, like he is something precious. She has seen the way he looks at them, like they are his lifeline. 

She hears the offer and her blood boils, her heart stutters.

Here is Princess Marie, looking at Lord Whitetower, who so easily told her off for putting herself in danger, who so eagerly accepted to help her, who came back alive and saved her. 

This is what he wanted, is it not? This is what he asked her father for. 

But she looks at his friends and  _ wonders.  _

_ (She had wanted to go back to the palace the way things were. But she had found, after delivering Lydda and the others back to their brother, it all felt hollow and bare. _

_ The feeling had remained until today, when her friends returned with smiles and gentle touch and laughter.) _

Here are Lors Whitetower’s friends, who know him better than anyone but don’t know him well enough, who want to learn for him and teach him:

Velune, who looks at him and sees a son. 

Fina, who sees a brother. 

Betty, who sees her clan. 

_ Meltyre.  _

_ (And what does Meltyre see? This is the man who called him a hedge wizard, who resented him for leaving, who asked him to teach him magic. Sterling recoiled from him in the Woods of Woe, when he thought he’d failed them.  _

_ This is Sterling, his friend and a person he most loves, someone Meltyre would die for, would live for, too.) _

What can Sterling say, in the face of all these eyes? _ All this scrutiny and all this silence and this noise _ _ — _

He breathes in.

In one swift, shaking second, in the trembling space of a single breath, he  _ remembers. _

There are a few seconds before an avalanche and those seconds are this: the answer comes to him as he remembers how easy it was to love his friends, to believe in them. He remembers how magic, intentional magic, first felt in his hands when he called for it, Meltyre and Velune’s encouraging smiles, how relieving it was to have a teacher. 

He knows how it feels now to laugh from the belly and to grin. Fina calls him  _ paladon’t _ and there’s no bite to it, no snark. If there had been responsibilities for being Betty’s clan he would have fulfilled them. How fragile did he feel when he saw Meltyre at the door of the inn, how foolish when he saw a death wish, how earnest when he swore his life, when he apologized. He told Velune to find closure, did he not? He learned from them when he could.

_ (And he swore his life to them. He did. They have saved him in more ways than one and he is theirs and they are his.) _

He remembers, too, how it felt to lose them. He can taste the hurt of Meltyre leaving. He remembers Betty breaking. He can see Velune this close to fading away from them forever, that day at the Inn.

Sometimes he closes his eyes and he sees Fina, dead and come to life again. He did not say it, not then, but if they had needed to kill someone  _ (and how simple to admit his love, even then), _ he would have offered up his own.

He will be the first to die because he will always choose to save them.

He remembers how Saint Cuthbert listened to him, understands that his magic was earned and not granted. He understands, too, that the first day he met them was not accident.

It was  _ fate. _

And maybe this is a mistake and he will regret it. Maybe they will be mad, or disappointed. Perhaps his mother will be shattered. Perhaps the nobles will reject him.

But it’s not the nobles who matter. They have never truly mattered.

He told the others to have faith, once. Now, he does the same.

“No.”

No one breathes.

“Excuse me?”

“Thank you for your kind offer, but I must turn it down.”

_ (Remember that he did not wish to go back to the way he was before. Remember he is living a lie. Remember how the only people who know him completely are at his back. _

_ His order would take him back as forgiveness for something he didn’t do. His friends have forgiven him for all the things he has.) _

“These people are my friends, and they have stood by me when no one else did. I will stand by them, now. I am a better paladin, a better  _ person, _ with them than I ever was with the order. Saint Cuthbert has guided me to my true calling, and it would be foolish to abandon the people I call family.”

_ (Lord Whitetower said his life’s duty was to protect and serve his princess. Sterling got on his knees to ask Meltyre for forgiveness.) _

They stare at him, wide eyed. 

He turns away from the order, from his past, looks at his mother. 

She is smiling at him, pleased and not at all disappointed.

_ (Remember how she said she would not have been mad.) _

Her hug comes as a surprise, but the warmth isn’t. She knows, must have known, knew.

“Things happen,” she tells him, quiet and proud and beaming.

He nods. Steeling himself, he turns to the others

There they are: his friends, his family, the people worthiest of him, his gang, his people. Fina taught him humility. Betty taught him strength. Velune taught him faith. Meltyre taught him regret. 

The people who gave him magic.

_ (The people who gave him love, honest and all-encompassing, whole and sacred and bone-deep.) _

They stand wide eyed and impressed, except Betty. Nothing gets past her, she must have known since long ago. Velune looks less surprised and more proud, they were the one to ask him if he would go back. Fina looks impressed, and he is pleased, but she does not look surprised.

Meltyre does.

“Sterling? Wha—?”

_ (“Then I guess it wasn’t who you were, after all.”) _

“What happened?”

_ (“What changed?”) _

He is certain.

_ (“You guys, I think.”) _

“You.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to yell at me over on ladywhitetower on Tumblr!!!


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